Tag: historical fiction

#BookReview #Ad The Drums of War by Michael Ward

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The Drums of WarAbout the Book

London 1642. The King has fled London with the drums of war ringing in his ears. Across the country, lines are being drawn and armies raised.

Influential royalist Lady Carlisle switches sides and presses spice trader Thomas Tallant and his partner Elizabeth Seymour into Parliament’s service.

Soon Thomas faces double-dealing in his hunt for a lethal hoard of gunpowder hidden on the river, while Elizabeth engages in a race against time to locate a hidden sniper picking off Parliamentary officers at will in the city.

The capital also witnesses a vicious gang of jewel thieves take advantage of the city’s chaos to go on the rampage, smashing homes and shops, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. They hand pick their targets but refrain from selling any of their loot. There are more questions than answers.

When war finally erupts, Elizabeth is caught in the brutalising carnage of Edgehill while Thomas joins the Trained Bands in their defence of the city. As he mans the barricades at Brentford, in a desperate rearguard action to repel Prince Rupert’s surprise attack, he realises the future of London rests in the hands of him and a few hundred troopers.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth believes she has identified the jewel thief and goes underground to trace his hoard. But all is not as it seems.

Format: ebook (227 pages)                  Publisher: Sharpe Books
Publication date: 18th August 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

Find The Drums of War (Thomas Tallant #3) on Goodreads

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My Review

The Drums of War is the third book in the author’s Thomas Tallant series, the sequel to Rags of Time and The Wrecking Storm. Links from the titles will take you to my reviews. The Drums of War can definitely be read as a standalone although I would recommend reading the series from the beginning for maximum enjoyment.

Once again the author has created an exciting combination of mystery and adventure built around actual historical events and featuring real historical figures, including the prominent Parliamentarian John Pym, pioneering physician William Harvey and the calculating Lucy, Countess of Carlisle.

I was delighted to see the return of the pipe-smoking Elizabeth Seymour, and playing a key role in the story too. Elizabeth prides herself on her logic and her knowledge of science, medicine and mathematics. Indeed the latter enables a breakthrough in the hunt for a sniper who has been targeting officers of the Trained Bands, the militia in charge of the defence of the City of London from the forces of the King. But Elizabeth’s confidence in her abilities is challenged when she finds herself at the Battle at Edge Hill, overwhelmed by the scale of the carnage and her inability to help the injured and dying.  ‘My God, it was Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell – the cries and shouts of desperate men, punctuated by booming cannon and the crackle of musket fire, in a fog of choking, gunpowder smoke.’  She also witnesses, in one particularly moving scene, the truth of what Thomas warned civil war would bring at the close of the previous book: ‘Father against son. Husband against wife. Brother against brother.’ 

Meanwhile Thomas finds himself thrust into the centre of the action as well and relying on some quick-witted companions and some lucky breaks to escape unscathed from the heat of battle.  

Alongside recounting Thomas’s and Elizabeth’s adventures (which on this occasion take place largely separately), the author introduces a mysterious, unnamed narrator with a connection to one of the secondary plot lines. But just what this person’s motive is remains unclear, as does their connection with an old adversary of the Tallant family. The book ends with a teaser that I hope suggests there are more adventures to come for Thomas and Elizabeth.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Drums of War with its intricate plot, fascinating historical detail and engaging leading characters. 

My thanks to the author for my digital review copy. You can find out more about ‘the life and times of Thomas Tallant’ on the author’s website.  

In three words: Intriguing, entertaining, eventful 

Try something similar: The Drowned City by K. J. Maitland 

Mike Ward Author picAbout the Author

Mike Ward is an English creator of historical fiction. Born in Liverpool, he was a BBC journalist and journalism academic before turning to non-factual writing.

His debut novel The Rags of Time is located in London in 1639. It marks the start of a tumultuous 30 years – civil war, regicide, republic and royal restoration. Politics, religion, commerce, science, and medicine – none are left untouched by this ferment of change.

Mike believes it’s the perfect setting for his hero Thomas Tallant’s series of adventures, starting with Rags of Time and followed by The Wrecking Storm and The Drums of War.

Connect with Michael
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#BookReview The Romantic by William Boyd

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The RomanticAbout the Book

Born in 1799, Cashel Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating, years of luck and unexpected loss.

Moving from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days.

As he travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, a father, a lover, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life and, through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century, he discovers who he truly is.

This is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic.

Format: Hardback (464 pages)           Publisher: Viking
Publication date: 6th October 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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Hive | Amazon UK
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My Review

The Romantic is one of the books on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023 but it had been on my RADAR long before that.  The Romantic has been compared by other readers to one of William Boyd’s earlier books, Any Human Heart, which is also a ‘whole life’ story, albeit set in a different period. I haven’t read that book although it is on my virtual TBR pile.

The Romantic is a faux biography, complete with footnotes, sketches and draft letters, of Cashel Greville Ross which recounts events in his life from his childhood in 19th century Ireland to his demise at the age of 82. It’s picaresque in style with Cashel undertaking many adventures including being wounded whilst serving as a drummer boy at the Battle of Waterloo, becoming an ice trader and pioneering a new kind of beer (‘Rossbrau’) in New England, and undertaking a search for the source of the River Nile.  Cashel’s fictional exploits are intertwined with real historical events and actual historical personages such as Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, and the explorers Richard Burton and John Speke.  There is a colourfully drawn cast of minor characters. For example, banker Mr Forbes Harkin described as ‘a slim, serious-looking bald man with a stiff-pointed white wisp of a beard growing from his chin that looked as if it had been stuck there as a prank’.

Described by one reviewer as ‘Around the World in 80 Years’, Cashel’s adventures take him across the globe to places as varied as Oxford, Venice, Zanzibar and Madras.  It’s during his time in Italy that the most significant event in his life occurs: the moment he meets the Countess Raphaella Rezzo. From the start he is completely bewitched by her. ‘And he knew – as an animal knows that he has found his mate. He need look no further, ever.’  However, as we know from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ‘The course of true love never did run smooth’.

Yes, there’s a love story so Cashel is a romantic in that respect but he is also a romantic in outlook, being driven by impulse and circumstance, rather than by thoroughly thought through plans. ‘Why did he always have to act so spontaneously, he wondered, driven by absolute conviction? Absolute convictions could all too easily be wrong – as his own life had demonstrated.’ Quite. Cashel experiences all the vicissitudes of life from becoming a bestselling author to (shades of Dickens’ Little Dorrit) being imprisoned in the Marshalsea prison for debt. In the process he gains both friends and enemies leading him to adopt new identities from time to time. It also has to be said that he leaves a trail of discarded relationships in his wake, there always seeming to be one more obstacle for him to overcome. ‘He thought he could detect a malign pattern in his life – that he was always moving on, for some reason or other, and leaving something precious behind.’ Somehow, though, Cashel always picks himself up, dusts himself down and sets off anew. By the way, you’ll need to be patient for the significance of the image on the cover to be revealed.

The Romantic is quite a big book but the sheer zest with which Cashel’s story unfolds means it doesn’t feel like that. It’s a wonderfully entertaining romp through the 19th century with the most engaging travelling companion you could possibly hope for.  It’s an achievement of literary imagination that surely makes it a strong contender for the shortlist; some even tip it to be the winner.

In three words: Sweeping, witty, engaging

Try something similar: The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

William Boyd

About the Author

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. He is the author of sixteen highly acclaimed, bestselling novels and five collections of short stories. He is married and divides his time between London and south-west France. (Photo: Publisher author page)

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